Review of Picturing the Bible: The Earliest Christian Art
January 18, 2008
Picturing the Bible: The Earliest Christian Art is a remarkable Kimbell Museum exhibit of creative expression dating to the first few centuries A.D. Although touted as a “spectacular display of many of the greatest treasures of early Christianity from around the world,” the collection is almost entirely comprised of pieces from throughout the Roman Empire. Avid enthusiasts of the early history of the Church and its development, as well as casual museum-goers, will undoubtedly be moved as well as surprised by the depth and complexity of the thought and output produced by the earliest proponents of the New Testament. It is striking to witness the countless examples of popular and powerful themes of the day, themes that have been lost to the intervening centuries from then until now. These include the importance of the story of Jonah and the “leviathan” (which we commonly refer to today as a whale, but which the earliest artisans of both the Old and New Testaments invariably represented as a sea monster in their carvings and impressions); the apocryphal story of Peter, imprisoned in Rome, striking a rock wall in his cell and causing it to spring forth with water which was then used to baptize one of his Roman prison guards and which was a direct attempt to equate Peter with Moses accomplishing the same feat in his desert wanderings; and the constant, consistent use of the icthys (fish) symbol as their identifier, many decades before the use of the crucifixion symbolism that has been used up through present times.
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